One: I absolutely hated Defense Against the Dark Arts. I would rather hide in my basement than ever have to use DADA in real life. I mean, who really uses this stuff in real life? Other than Aurors…and those bad guys…Bugger! Okay, maybe it was useful, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.

Two: There is something seriously wrong with Marlene McKinnon. She’s a Ravenclaw, but acts as though she’s a Slytherin. On the way into class she had bumped into Lily Evans (it looked pretty deliberate if you ask me) and sent her pile of books flying all over the corridor. Didn’t stop to ask if she was all right, just kept on moving into class. I swore she even snickered.

And finally, number three: I hate Sirius Black. If it was legal and I wouldn’t end up in Azkaban, he would be ten feet under. I’d probably bury him sixty feet under, just to prove my point…and make sure he didn’t rise from the dead. Zombies are very very frightening if you aren’t careful.

Number three was the only one that mattered, mind you.

The desks were still cleared out of the middle of the room, as we were still doing our DADA tournament of sorts. It was laughable, really. Everyone knew who was going to win (one of the Marauders, obviously). Why did the rest of us even try?

Because our grades depended on it. Bugger to Professor Dearborn. Couldn’t he just go back to being an Auror and leave me to getting my barely passing grades?

To be honest, I wasn’t doing half bad in the tournament. I had beaten two Slytherins in the first round, mainly because I was used to both of their curses. In the third round, the Hufflepuff girl ended up crying her eyes out, because she thought I was going to kill her. I didn’t really blame her, except I was holding my wand backwards. She would’ve won. The fourth round, the Ravenclaw tried to show off by doing a nonverbal spell, except no spell came from his wand. I managed to get one out before he realized what he was doing.

The fifth round consisted of six Gryffindors (myself, Lily Evans, bloody Black, Pothead, Remus, and Alice), two Ravenclaws (McKinnon and Teddy- who I was still not talking to), and a Slytherin (Nott). We Gryffindors, we rock this. We are like, the fighters of Hogwarts. Except I like to believe I’m a pacifist…sort of.

“Loony-I mean Lenny? You’re up!” Remus nudged me in the back, straight towards the middle of the room. I grumbled, seeing Lily Evans on the other side.

Well, goodbye good grade, nice to see you in the distance. Damn good grades liking to tease me and such. They dangle themselves in front of my face, and then yank themselves away like the teasing grades they are. Stupid teasing grades.

Evans gave me a quick once over before raising her wand. I did the same, immediately regretting not surrendering to the not-so-smart Ravenclaw. Merlin’s beard, the end of her wand looked so intimidating. It probably isn’t a good idea to look at her face…that’s probably even more intimidating.

A spell came straight at my face, whizzing past my ear. I think I just saw my life flash before my eyes. I just saw me being mean to the muggle next door neighbor when I was five. Why did I have to tell him he looked like a mongoose? Was this karma?

“Rictusempra” I whispered, trying my hardest not to let Evans hear me. She reacted slowly, the spell hitting her shoulder. She started to giggle hysterically, losing her balance and falling on the ground. She was clutching her stomach, trying to control the uncontrollable laughter. That’s why they call it uncontrollable, Ms. Evans.

“You’re dead, Ms. Evans,” he declared, turning away and crossing her name off of a large tournament board he had created.

Lily looked on the verge of tears. Her face was red with embarrassment as people were snickering at her being beat by Loony Lenny. She collected her wand, tucking it into her cloak, the whole time not bringing her eyes off of the ground. She approached me, her face now as red as her hair. I waited for the shouting, the curse, or something along those lines.

“Good job, Lenny. Completely caught me off guard,” Lily mumbled, extending her hand to me. I blinked a few times, not sure if she was joking to embarrass me back or something along those lines.

Hesitantly, I took her hand and gave it a small shake. She smiled sheepishly at me, stuffing her hands in her pockets. I shuffled out of the middle of the classroom, Lily following me. I frowned. Was she waiting for me to turn by back so she could curse me? Those muggleborns were always the sneakiest.

“Lenny?” Lily whispered from my side. I peeked over at her, letting my eyes turn away from Black going up against McKinnon.

“Hmm?”

“You should teach me that jinx…I could use it on Potter some time.” She let a small smile creep onto her face. I looked for some sign of anger or some sign that she’d blow me up when I wasn’t looking, but didn’t find it. I wasn’t very observant, however.

“S-sure.” I mumbled. Was this the start of some deformed friendship? I hoped not, friendships were too hard to keep up, too time consuming.

That’s been my excuse for years whenever Mum asks me if I have any. Teddy’s good enough for me, he doesn’t need any up-keeping. Say hello to him a few times and everything is all right. Yet, as of right now, Teddy isn’t even my friend. Great. Lonely Lenny.

That sounds much better than Loony Lenny.

Teddy hadn’t even tried to talk to me after the match. It had been nearly a week already. Albeit, I ran away from him every time he got close. I had taken to pretending to be in a deep conversation with a portrait in order to avoid him. How could he have an excuse for the match? His friends were on the Gryffindor team, hell, his sister was on the other team! Teddy wasn’t aggressive and yet he had played like he was a Slytherin.

Maybe that would be his excuse. The Slytherins hid them in a broom cupboard before the match and drank polyjuice potion so they could pose as the Ravenclaw team. That’d be a lot better than the truth: they just wanted to win.

I filed out with the rest of the class, letting myself get shoved forward as students rushed to get to their next lesson. Luckily for me, that mean free period. I felt a heavy weight on my shoulder, looking to see a large hand on it.

“Lenny, can we talk?” a voice whispered in my ear. Not in a seductive way (get your mind out of the gutters!), however. I recognized the voice immediately and felt my ears burn.

“No..and don’t think you can call me Lenny. You have to call me Crowley from now on.” I yanked my shoulder away from his gasp and tried to walk forward, but Teddy fell easily into step with me.

Damn my parents for giving me the bad genes. Teddy got everything! The looks (even though we are fraternal twins), the brains, the agility, the build, the list really could go on. Maybe Teddy really was a cheater, probably having stolen all the good genes while we were in the womb.

“That would be like me saying my own name,” Teddy said, a hint of a laugh in his voice. This wasn’t funny! I was being very very serious! I glared at him to confirm my seriousness. He simply raised an eyebrow at me.

“We are no longer family, either!” I hissed. He chuckled, shaking his dark hair into his eyes.

“Are you going to tell Mum that, or should I?” Teddy asked, smirking at me. Rotten. He had gotten me there.

“You can tell her. Then she’ll want to know why we are no longer family and then you’ll have to explain the match. Then she’ll be so shocked, she’ll agree with me and kick you out of the family. Dodger the dog likes you more though, so he’ll stick by your side. You two can live in the shed, because Dad would throw a fit if he knew you were on your own, because he would care deep deep down about you.” I rambled. Teddy raised his eyebrows past his hairline at me.

I made perfect sense! At least it did in my head.

“Listen Lenny, I didn’t know they were going to target you like that! If I would have, then I wouldn’t have allowed it!” Teddy cried, running a frustrated hand through his hair. Yeah that’s right, Teddy. Be frustrated. Be embarrassed. Be…something else. I just can’t think of another word.

“So Alice wouldn’t have been hurt then either? What about Higgins? Bagman?” I asked him. His face went pale. He hadn’t thought about that. “I thought you Ravenclaws were smart. I thought you knew what would happen if you played just as dirty as the Slytherins!”

“We-Lenny, just listen to me! Davies said we needed to win…James and Sirius tried to take out our players the week before the game! You think that’s fair?” He asked. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“I don’t give a damn about Pothead and Black, they’re just as vile as you are right now. What I do care about was the look on Alice’s face when she flew down at the time-out, covered in her own blood!” I growled. Teddy was about to speak up, but I put my hand up, silencing him. “You owe me a lot of chocolate and a better apology.”

I went to turn away, but noticed Alice was standing a few feet behind me with Evans. They both were staring, not trying to hide the fact that they were listening. Alice glanced at my brother and cringed, obviously remembering the events of the game. She then looked at me, a smile tugging at her lips.

”Thanks, Lenny.” She whispered. Lily grabbed her arm, smiling at me as well, but shooting Teddy a nasty glare. If looks could kill, Teddy….well Teddy would have been dead when we were five and he ripped the head off of all of my Quidditch dolls.

Those were collectables!

I turned away just as fast as the girls did, darting away before Teddy could say any more.

When I got into the bedroom that night, all three girls were sitting on the floor, rolling around in fits of giggles. This happened every Friday night. They called it a slumber party. I called it hell. It wasn’t like they ever asked me to join in, so I could rest peacefully.

They all stopped when I entered the room and turned their eyes towards me. Again, another occurrence. They were so close, I never questioned it. They were probably plotting Pothead’s death. That was something I was actually interested in.

I smiled at them, remembering that I was supposed to be pleasant. Ugh. Smiling hurts my mouth a lot more than a frown does. Frowns are easy. In my mind, frowns are more attractive than a smile. Weird, but that’s why I’m Lenny.

“Like I was saying…” Mary McDonald started again, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder and grinning at the girls. Ew. Ugly.

“Hey Lenny? Do you want to join us?” Alice asked. I looked up in time to see Mary shoot Alice a nasty look, elbowing her in the ribcage.

“We could really use your input, Lenny.” Lily added, smiling over at me. I peeked at the trio from over my magazine and frowned. What could they possibly need my input on?

”Well, come on then. Don’t just gawk at us. Come down here!” Mary said impatiently. I gathered my blanket around myself and sank into the empty spot in their triangle (which I had turned into a square).

”The Cannons have lost every game for nearly a decade!” I countered. Her face flushed pink at my comment, but she smiled nonetheless.

“It’s a family thing to love the Cannons. I think they’re horrible, but they are so modest, it just makes them a valued team.” Alice said. I could see why she liked the Cannons. She was modest, they were modest. They weren’t violent, she wasn’t violent. Perfect match.

“If by valued, you mean everyone would value them being flushed down the toilet, then yes. They are valued.” I stated. Lily giggled from my left, while Mary shot me a nasty look from my right.

“Can we discuss what we were talking about earlier?” Mary hissed. The other girls barely seemed to notice the coldness in her voice.

“Well, I think McKinnon is something else, I mean really. Who in their right mind would be dating Regulus Black?” Lily said, tugging at her red hair as she tried to tie it up in a pony.

“He is cute. What’s his problem, though? McKinnon has something stuck up her arse and wears way too much make up.” Mary commented. I snorted into my blanket very unattractively. She glared at me over the tip of her nose. For someone that talked about wearing too much make up, she was sure a hypocrite.

“I agree with Lenny’s snort, Mary. You cannot talk.” Lily added, flashing a grin at Mary when she turned her glare onto her.

“Well…at least I look good.” Mary gave me a very knowing look. I glanced at myself in the mirror behind Alice. I didn’t like make up, it made me feel like I had mush on my face. I always was tempted to itch my face or rub the eyeliner off whenever I wore make up.

“Lenny has that natural look. I like it.” Alice spoke up. Alice wore the natural look as well, only really putting on mascara to make her small eyelashes pop.

“Me too. Though you could use a little bit of eyeliner. Lenny, you have gorgeous eyes.” Lily added. I looked at her, seeing her emerald eyes shine as they met my own. I had gorgeous eyes? Mine were the color of my broomstick, nothing to be proud of.

I shrugged at her. I never paid much attention to myself, so it was a mystery to me what would look good on me and what wouldn’t. Lily popped up from her seat, running over to her nightstand and fishing around. Then she came back to us, holding a pencil in her hand.

“I’m going to show you what I mean. You guys will see it.” Lily stated, coming towards me.

“Are you going to poke me in the eye with that thing?! I thought you liked my eyes!” I declared, scooting away from the sharp object. Lily sighed as Alice giggled. Mary was still glaring at me.

“No, Lenny. I’m going to put eyeliner-“ she held up the pencil “-on your eyes. It won’t hurt.”

I whined, but was eventually coaxed into letting Lily apply a delicate amount of eyeliner to my eyes. The girls gasped, all agreeing with Lily about the whole “make my eyes pop” statement Lily was making while applying it. I looked at myself in the mirror, but all I saw was Lenny. With scary looking eyes.

“I look like a ghoul.” I stated.

“You look like you’re actually making an effort.” Mary commented. I grumbled, but held my fingers. If I wanted to get along with these girls, I couldn’t pick off the eyeliner.

“I can apply it tomorrow morning to you. We could give you a small make over or something!” Lily giggled, her face lighting up at the prospect.

”With our help, you could actually look good. As long as you don’t open your mouth. You’d ruin it right there.” Mary added.

I stuck my tongue out in the mirror. My tongue looked fine. Did Mary mean I didn’t have good teeth? I examined them in the mirror, but couldn’t find a fault in them. Sure, they were a little crooked, but nothing drastic.

“She means just don’t talk.” Alice said.

Oh…that made more sense.

A half hour later and a lot of talk of what they would do to me in the morning (I was really terrified to wake up), we all clamored into bed. I pulled my blanket up over my head and let my mind wander.

Did this mean I had friends? Could I actually discard Teddy of friend status now? Mary was giving me cold glares, but that could be because the make up was heavy on her eyes. She did wear a lot. I had to make sure they didn’t do that to me, someone could mistake me for giving them a dirty look.

I started to drift off, but not before I rubbed away the eyeliner, producing blackened finger. Bollucks, I’d have to pin my hands down tomorrow after this so called “make over”.

Author's Note: I didn't want to ever have to do this, but I want to make a little shout-out to Victory_4_Victoire for giving me the idea of the polyjuice potion for the match! I read it in her review and thought it was brilliant and had to incorporate it somewhere!

I know this is a little overdue and this chapter sucks, but it's slowly getting better. No Sirius showing up in this chapter, but there will be a lot in the next chapter with him! But Lenny's making friends, doesn't that count?!

Thank you all so much for the reviews. I wouldn't have continued if you hadn't. <3